Airborne-YouTube

Go Baby GO!!

Special To ANN By Wes Oleszewski

The night before the second launch attempt we got a later start
out of Daytona than we had the first time. We stopped and ate and
this time we were all armed with sleeping bags. Just as we had
planned Friday morning, almost everyone parked where they had been
for the scrub. This time, however, some of us crawled into our
sleeping bags and grabbed a few hours of sleep. I have to admit
that I kept waking up, looking at the shuttle in the spotlights and
then covering back up thinking "Wow."

As dawn broke folks began milling around again. This time there
as a different feeling in the air- I had a sense that the shuttle
was gonna go for sure. A few hucksters were walking up and down the
crowd, as they had done on the day of the scrub, trying to sell
assorted souvenirs. One guy had a simple white bumper-sticker that
had a rough shuttle image on it and the words "I SAW IT." Someone,
I believe it may have been Jennings shouted to him "What if it
blows up?" Without missing a beat the huckster reached into his
pocket and pulled out a large black marker. He pointed to an open
space on the right hand corner of the bumper-sticker and he said
"Then you take this marker and over here you write BLOW UP." He was
apparently a huckster with the Right Stuff.

Our friend with the mobile Space Shuttle flight following
station in the trunk of his car had taken his place right next to
us again. Just like on scrub day, I had remembered to bring along
my tape recorder. I'd been taping launch broadcasts from the TV
since I was 13 years old and I got Apollo 14, so I wanted to get
this one. I asked our pal with the battery powered TV if I could
place my tape recorder next to his TV at launch time and pick up
some of the broadcast. He happily agreed and we all waited as the
countdown passed every milestone that it had stumbled upon during
the first attempt. No one knew what to expect- in fact, the damned
thing just might blow up.

We saw nothing but a silhouette of the shuttle and pad 39A as
the sun came up. It was a bit hazy and so our view remained that of
a silhouette while the count ticked down. Like expectant parents we
paced a bit and alternated between looking at the pad in the
distance and focusing on the little TV set. I kept running through
my mind the fact that this was indeed history that could be
considered on the scale of witnessing Freedom 7, or Friendship 7,
or Gemini 3, or Apollo 8 or perhaps even Apollo 11. Countless space
firsts were about to take place right in front of our eyes. I just
had to hope that I did not forget to turn on my tape recorder.

As the countdown hit the two minute mark I hit the record button
and set the tape recorder down next to the TV. Oddly, about that
same time no one was looking at the TV set, every eye that had a
view of the pad was focused toward the silhouette of the shuttle
backed by the amber sky. Everything seemed to get quite still.

At main engine start we saw the silhouette of the steam
billowing from the engines working against the sound suppression
water. Three seconds later the solids lit and we saw what looked
like a second sunrise. Then the STS-1 stood up on two stilts of
flame as bright as the sun. Everyone was screaming "GO!... Go Baby
GO!... GO!" I heard myself screaming it and I heard it echoing up
and down the riverbank. What I did not hear, was the shuttle. Then
I remembered something I read in Mike Collin's book "Carrying the
Fire." When he described watching the first Saturn V, Apollo 4,
launch he said that about the time he said to himself "you can't
hear it." the sound hit him. And just as I had that thought, the
sound hit us.

Although there were certainly a few Saturn V veterans present,
most folks who were there to witness STS-1 had never experienced
anything like the shuttle. It reached out and took hold of you and
shook the ground under our feet. My tape recorder picked up the
sound of the items in the trunk of the car rattling. The only thing
louder was the sound of the shouts, screams, squeals and rebel
yells coming from the crowd. People were jumping up and down and
punching their fists into the air as STS-1 ripped into the sky. You
really had to work to hear any of the calls coming from mission
control. The whole thing kept going for over two minutes and then
we heard the "Go for SRB sep." call. It was then that everything
seemed to grow comparatively quiet with just a smattering of
"Hoots" and "Whoooos". A few seconds later at SRB separation we saw
the translucent white plume and then saw the two solids dropping
away. At that moment a spontaneous cheer went up followed by a
rolling applause produced by the half million or so people who now
lined the riverbank as far as the eye could see. It was as if the
home team had made a fantastically great play in front of a sellout
crowd. It was sudden and it was contagious- I found myself clapping
as if someone in NASA could actually hear me. That applause was
actually captured on my tape.

Following SRB separation we turned our attention to the tiny TV
set, watching and listening as STS-1 headed for its target in
orbit. In the distance out over the Atlantic the vehicle looked
like a very bright star hanging in the sky. As the boost continued
we had the illusion that the vehicle was actually heading downward
toward the horizon- because that was what it was actually doing.
Soon the star simply faded into a pinpoint. A glance at the TV and
then a look back toward the sky found the shuttle lost to the eye.
At Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) everyone seemed to snap back to
reality. There was pure joy in the crowd and you heard a lot of
"Man! Did you see that?" as if someone could have missed it. We
patted one another on the back, smiled and felt great, even though
we had done nothing more than be there and watch. One fellow coined
it all when he grinned widely and said "Gee… I wish they had
another one."

Even the ride home was conducted as a festive traffic jamb.
People were filled with pride and in our car the clogged roadway
simply gave us more time to chatter about the launch. I got back to
Kmart in time to start my Sunday shift on schedule. Over in the
appliance department a small crowd had gathered around the TV sets.
One of guys working in that department had thought ahead and set
one of the VCRs to record the launch which was playing over and
over again as customers stood and watched- over and over again.

On that Sunday the folks that I worked with all heard that I had
been there and the guys in the appliance department told their
customers and pointed toward me. As I stocked my shampoo, denture
cream and glycerin suppositories, dozens of people came up to me
and asked "How was it?" The best I could do was to simply reply
that it was indescribable and urge them to go down and see one.

Since STS-1 I've been able to witness shuttle launches from the
beach, from the press site, from Embry Riddle's campus, from the
grounds of the Astronaut Hall of Fame, from the Ormond Beach
Bridge, from the NASA Causeway and twice from different KSC VIP
sites. In all I've seen a total of 19 shuttle launches in person. I
state that figure with regret as I, like most space-buffs, thought
that the shuttle would go on and on and serve out the system's
designed life-span of 100 missions per orbiter. I fell into the
trap set by NASA itself when it decided to make shuttle missions
appear commonplace. Now, the program is ending and there is no
equal replacement ready to fly. I managed to take my two little
girls to KSC to see the STS-125 launch. I wanted them to be able to
say "I saw it" when the subject of that fantastic vehicle that
launched like a rocket and flew back like an aircraft comes up in
history class and the teacher tells about the days when we as a
nation did amazing things that we no longer do.

On the 30th anniversary of STS-1 we have come full circle as a
space fairing nation. We went from having the shuttle as a drawing
board concept that teetered on the funding votes of Congress,
suffered the doubts of the critics and over-ran its schedule into a
launch test series that led it to become operational. On that day
the skyline of KSC looked much the same as it does today. The
Apollo LUT number 1 sat idle near the VAB as LC-39B was under
construction. Today, the Ares I LUT sits idle near the VAB while
LC-39B is being demolished. The shuttle is coming out of an era of
successful operation while the Obama administration defunds its
replacement which, after suffering at the hands of critics, had a
single test flight and the vehicle meant to replace it teeters on
Congressional funding whims and remains little more than a drawing
board concept. I'm happy that my kids can say "I saw it" but I hold
deep regret for future kids who will not be able to say the
same.